“Upon closer inspection of some of your past experiences or a present situation, you may find that the reality of the situation may be different from your perception of it. Your perception may simply be the result of how you have negatively processed past experiences. You know, you may feel as though something went wrong in the past therefore it’s going to go wrong in the future. You were judged before, therefore you’re going to be judged now. Things didn’t go right in the past, so things won’t go right now. So what if you did that before? I’m not here to judge you and you’re not here to judge yourself.

Quite the contrary, you are being smart in ridding yourself of ANYTHING that stands in the way of enhanced happiness. Capture more tools to empower yourself now. Explain how a negative processing sequence can have damaging results and rid yourself of that waste of time. Listen, have no worries. What is important is TODAY, what is important is NOW. Create a fresh new perspective with an open minded approach to evaluation, take action, and have positive reinforcement and you’ll have all that you desire. Armed with your soul machine now and proper gear, you will see almost INSTANT productive movement and achieve heightened happiness almost immediately.”

“Your thought processing will not allow you to admit your mistakes because you would then interpret them to mean that you have failed which your subconscious says cannot be admitted or the world will end. While I do not believe this is the fate that is ordained or necessary, let’s finish out the preparation of this unhealthy meal. Let’s talk about this recipe for unhappiness that is created by this negative thought processing. For example, we can add to the recipe for unhappiness by also stirring in some so-called bad experiences you have so successfully stored for immediate misuse. Drop in a quart of negative feelings about you rationalizing away some of the things that really bothered you, then add a cup of guilt or remorse or regret by concluding that you allow the situation to exist when you knew it was not the best or right thing. When it was not really what you wanted.

And with this concoction you’ll create ‘unhappy’ meals. With the energy you intend to direct to this endeavor, your distasteful meals will be completely cooked. You now have a gourmet meal of negativity that you will feed yourself for weeks and months to come. And you’ll wonder why you’re sick or you’re feeling bad. Adding to this nightmare, you will now judge yourself for the creation. In fact, you’ve decided in these situations to be the judge, jury, and executioner in holding yourself unreasonably accountable for whatever it is that you think you already knew about. Or whatever you think you should have done. Or whatever you think you should have done. So that whatever happened could not have happened. No matter what has happened, you have determined that it must be resolved in your mind with a conclusion that you didn’t get what you want for no good reason.

Perhaps you then reason, that the situation must have negatively impacted you. ‘I didn’t get what I wanted,’ you say, ‘there must be something wrong with me.’ This kind of thinking pattern clouds your ability to recognize the incredible amount of knowledge and awareness that is gained about yourself. I have news for you. Regardless of what caused the past event, and even a case where YOU sabotaged the situation…you can still acquire very useful and very positive information from every experience.”

“Happiness can be immediately realized. It does not as many say, always necessarily require a process or a certain period of time. Those who hold on to the ‘it will take a great deal of time’ philosophy are either in denial or simply not yet aware of the actual power that each of us possesses to define our present and achieve our future. The ‘it will take time’ belief system also devalues and misunderstands what constitutes progress or achievement. Attitudes are contagious…is yours worth catching? I challenge you to be the best person you can be, embrace that opportunity.

Utilize the layers of meaning in this book to empower you in every way. As you read this book over and over and you read certain sections you will find deeper and deeper meaning in some of the phrases. You will feel your power through the courage utilized in treating your experiences as instructive guides instead of destructive inhibitors. You have the knowledge and perspective to adjust your previous perception of your prior experiences—to the right way—that makes them instructive and not indelibly painful. You possess the strength right now to evaluate and honestly determine your real goals. You can feel the ease in establishing a plan and taking positive, confidence building action to achieve whatever happiness you desire. Indeed, never again will you face an experience that you consider as permanently indelible or impossible to resolve in a positive way.

Awesome isn’t it? You will now be able to evaluate each past experience that you originally consider painful in a way that educates you as to how and why you think the way you do. It will empower you not disable you. See an easier way to appreciate the value you derive from past experiences. Empower yourself with the experiences. Do NOT allow them to disable you. Apply the information you learned about yourself, your tendencies, your typical decision making process and why you think the way you do.”

“It cannot be helpful to ruminate and focus only on what you did wrong. Or only on what was done wrong to you. It will surely make you doubt that you will find the best way to a happier place. It will certainly slow you down. It will make you act in ways that hinder your progress toward happier places. If you are not going to listen to me and instead continue to dwell in the negative…then it is only fair that you devote at least the same amount of time to dwelling on the positive. I guarantee you that positive wins over negative. It is not acceptable to just think about the negative past experience or what it means about you. The longer you wait to take positive action or to release negative action the more layers of, what I call, crud that are created. You will create layers of crud that will cloud your ability to more quickly achieve your dreams and goals. This crud affects your ability to see great solutions as immediately available and can skew the way you process all kinds of past and present experiences. It can actually cause you to make certain decisions that directly affect your future. Choices that will not be made with the clarity of happiness. The crud of negativity and emotional deprivation is never going to be helpful for you. Choose the easier route—to allow yourself to be happy. That’s right I used the word ALLOW. That is because happiness can be realized even without labored action. It is realized by no longer tolerating negative environments. It is realized by no longer holding on to past experiences in a way that is negative. While it may not feel that way right now or when you’re in a particular situation. It really takes little effort to decide NOT to dwell or to decide to NOT self-criticize. It takes little time and effort to just stop beating yourself up about what you DID or SHOULD HAVE done. Indeed, one of the many beauties of happiness is that it also works like a surgeon. When you have happiness…it almost secretly removes the crud with little pain or tribulation. When you choose to be happy and to not be hindered by negativity in any form you will see INCREDIBLE and IMMEDIATE results.”

“Thus, through no one’s fault, you were not provided with a road map for productive processing of your emotions. Without positive conditioning and encouragement or imparting of wisdom in how to process or cope with your feelings there’s almost no way that your machine would not regurgitate those negative experiences.

As a result, what happens? You remember more about what you did not do, what people said you did not do than remembering what you have accomplished. This is a natural feeling. Perhaps you doubted the existence or power of your soul machine because of a past painful experience. You say you don’t want to remain in that state of feeling, but you assumed you were powerless to take steps to make the right and positive move. Because you are not functioning properly or your processing wasn’t working in the way you want, you didn’t really FEEL like you could move.”

You instead REPRESSED those feelings or stored them in a negative environment. The actual storage of these negative experiences acts like a clouding of the glass in a window. It layers the window of best action with layers of crud like film. As a result you sometimes unknowingly cannot see the best routes for most effective decision making. It essentially clouds or jades the way you think. It changes the way you make decisions. You don’t see things as clearly.

The process of clouding is rarely immediate. It almost always works in a more subtle way. In a way that you don’t always see the significance of the clouding until you honestly inspect yourself. Or you feel inexplicably compelled to move or remain in an illogical situation. You can see how powerful your perception of things can be.

How we think determines what we do. Therefore how you think will determine what you do. Your perspective impacts the kinds of information you will process and the way you will process it. Therefore you can immediately create happiness by simply adjusting your perspective. I use the word simply because when you see how your processing is working to date and to the extent to which it is creating artificial barriers to joy, you will agree that you will simply need to eliminate those thinking patterns. And the path will become quite clear and very easy to navigate.

“Upon closer inspection of some of your past experiences or a present situation, you may find that the reality of the situation may be different from your perception of it. Your perception may be the result of how you have negatively processed past experiences. You know, you may feel as though something went wrong in the past therefore it’s going to go wrong in the future. You were judged before, therefore you’re going to be judged now. Things didn’t go right in the past, so things won’t go right now. So what if you did that before?

I’m not here to judge you and you’re not here to judge yourself. Quite the contrary, you are being smart in ridding yourself of ANYTHING that stands in the way of enhanced happiness. Capture more tools to empower yourself now. Explain how a negative processing sequence can have damaging results and rid yourself of that waste of time.

Listen, have no worries. What is important is TODAY, what is important is NOW. Create a fresh new perspective with an open minded approach to evaluation, take action, and have positive reinforcement and you’ll have all that you desire. Armed with your soul machine now and proper gear, you will see almost INSTANT productive movement and achieve heightened happiness almost immediately.”

“Many people find it hard to except the reality that they control their future. They just do not think that there’s any kind of machine that will do anything that is really significant for them. They say they have no control over their environment, rather, they argue their environment controls them! Exemplified by statements like ‘There’s no possible escape from this job!’ or ‘I have to tolerate this professional personal situation’ or ‘I have to compromise this,’ or ‘I have to do that.’

Perhaps the stress and negative perceptions of past experiences makes a person feel as though, they are stuck in their present job or imprisoned in a relationship that they know is not satisfying. Perhaps they inadvertently compound their misperceptions with a processing of their past misfortunes as a reflection on their decision making abilities. Perhaps they believe they’re a victim of circumstance. Maybe they’ve manufactured the perception they can’t do better. This creationism renders them with a feeling of powerlessness to change their position in a way that enhances their lives and brings them more happiness. In some, many see the obstacles and NOT the opportunities.

Often, this feeling of being stuck in a position or in thinking of the worst from a situation comes from culture, your background, or your present environment. The environment in which you grew up, the attitudes of families and friends…imprints you with certain belief systems. For most, these environments, even if they’re very loving were not always positive—as people seem to always focus on telling you what you did NOT do. For example, criticisms about how you dress or look. Or attacks focusing on reminding you of what you DID or DID NOT do or over-criticisms of how you performed. Perhaps you faced environments that were militant or made condescending judgments about how you feel. Or you were unfairly judged. Or you were unproductively criticized for your decisions.

Perhaps people were telling you what you should have done, with negative commentary that wasn’t given with any positive encouragement or any explanation for why you’ve made the mistake. There are also over-controlling environments that make you feel as though your opinion does not matter such as requirements that you only date or marry one kind of person. Or that you have only one kind of job. Or criticism of your feelings without ANY explanation. Or refusal to talk about things or admit when they may be wrong. Using negative reinforcement, not serving as a role model for you, making your identity based on money or materialism. It goes on and on. But I’m sure some of you have seen those environments.

There’s also environments that lack proper structure or encouragement about how to achieve great goals. They could be riddled with negative behavior such as yelling at you, condescending behavior toward you, failing to take time to know and understand you. Acting impatient or displaying conduct that shows you they are being selfish or self-absorbed. Or that they are showing indifference or being emotionally unavailable. Perhaps there’s disrespect shown toward you or other negative reinforcement. It is virtually impossible to come through these environments with the most self-confidence and an always positive attitude. I’m not here to criticize the person or persons who may have created those environments. I’m simply illustrating the reasonableness of how and why you feel the way you do now. It is a reality that much more time was spent on what you did NOT do; much less time was spent on what you DID do.

In recognizing your accomplishments, recognizing your awards, and reinforcing how good you are. Indeed, you may have found that some achievements were inadvertently not even recognized and at times, when you did achieve, it seemed like it was expected instead of acknowledged. So no words of reward or encouragement were brought forth. Likely, if you were to be recognized for an achievement it was only when you did something they considered EXTRAORDINARY.”

“When others provide good suggestions, consider how they can help you. Recognize the benefits they can provide. They obviously care or no words would be spoken. They’re likely just trying to do their best to cheer you up, regardless of whether they have an exact understanding on how to best help you.

You are very worthy and important and no experience you perceive as negative nor any criticism will change that reality. However, if you believe that someone is being insensitive or engaging in actions that make you feel worse—it would be healthy to seriously reevaluate your relationship with that person.

Being angry or negative about someone’s attempts to lend support is surely not what you stand for, nor beneficial to your resolution of the situation. In fact, as noted later, anger is a wasted emotion. A state of being that cost you energy with little benefit and much detriment. You certainly do not feel better after you’ve made such comments.

The only thing anger DOES Do is show that you are holding onto some negative feelings. Anger reflects the bursting out of those repressed feelings through abrasive, reactive behavior. It is equally unhelpful to emotionally shutdown or otherwise hold some or all of your feelings inside. For those that wish to hold on to their shut down pattern, I simply ask you to show me how productive it is to hold back your real feelings. Show me how it’s beneficial to suppress your real desires because of some perceived fear that it might someday in the future, somehow result, in hurt to you. I want to learn more about how THAT is productive and how that is better than expressing how you feel in a way that works. Be you for you and don’t emotionally shutdown.”

Number 1: It empowers you in a positive way—showing how much you really have accomplished. It shows the volume and the magnitude of your accomplishments. It shows that you’re fully capable of creating success and happiness. It arms you with valuable information about the things that make you happy. And it shows that any present concerns can be DWARFED by the reality that you are a successful person in so many ways that you will conquer anything that troubles you. It demonstrably shows that any goals are achievable and it empowers you with a framework for building upon that success with your development of your new goals. And

Number 2: It productively shows you how we often FORGET or DEVALUE the positive. You’ll recognize that your thinking patterns may have clouded the way you think and clouded the way your past experiences, in a negative way, have drowned out the positive that was derived from it. Because of these misperceptions, you may have devalued or diluted your greatness. You are not seeing the good things that you achieved and all the intelligence you gained because the thinking pattern had you focusing on what you did not have or could not achieve. You saw obstacles, not clear paths. With knowledge gained from recognizing achievements and your past thinking pattern, now your perspective and thinking process will change in a great way. Providing regular reminders of your achievements and the knowledge gained from those experiences. You will thereby be empowered to utilize this greater happiness to fashion better roots to more joy.

The foundation of any success is built upon honest recognition of your goodness and your capabilities. Start with a real recognition of your accomplishments. Take time to specifically identify what you have accomplished during your lifetime. And understand that when I talk about the word accomplishments, they also mean the steps you have utilized to complete to get to a goal—the steps along the way. There is no rating system that says you don’t include whatever you consider to be small accomplishments. You know, too many people focus on the end goal and don’t realize how many things you’ve done along the way to reach the ultimate goal. This important step of identification of your greatness deserves acknowledgement. For example, you may have eventually left a job and thought you were unhappy about it or that somehow you didn’t succeed, but I guarantee you that you can identify what you DID do—what you DID contribute during that job—and what you learned. A relationship may have ended, and you think it was all bad or it was your fault or their fault, but I assure you, you can identify some great things that you enjoyed and contributions which you made and things that you learned which will be helpful in the future. Additionally, there are always accomplishments in the education you gathered about yourself and your tendencies whether you choose to admit it or not. In other words, you learn about what you TEND to do, how you TEND to decide in a certain way, what motivates you to do certain things. I will go even further and tell you that an accomplishment can be derived from what you thought was a failure. I can tell you the word FAILURE is not in MY dictionary, it shouldn’t be in yours either! Thus, you should include personal and professional accomplishments in order to recognize your goodness. Now we’re focusing on all accomplishments. List them ALL. It may take time. But I guarantee you that there will be reward in actually writing down and seeing your list of accomplishments. Be honest with yourself. Give due recognition to every achievement. This is about what you HAVE done and the significant good in you. I want you to identify ALL that you have achieved and ALL that you are.

I use the phraseology ‘How You Feel’ because people generally avoid dealing with how they really feel even though they want to feel a certain way. Your mind, filled with the perceptions that you have processed through a clouded lens, tells you it will be painful or time consuming to deal with a problem or with your real concerns, or to secure your real dreams. However, rather ironically, it is actually more difficult and takes more energy to work to avoid dealing with things.

It takes more energy to mask reality and it always makes you feel uncomfortable when something occurs where your feelings are in anyway involved. If you are a person of character, you would not knowingly lie to someone. So why lie to yourself? Your soul machine is designed to create happiness and joy. It is designed to put out more than what you put in it. Thus, let’s put some great stuff in the machine—because it will give us even more greatness in return. Just as your soul machine can create increasing levels of frustration, anger, or sadness. So too, can it create magnified happiness and joy.